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Vie des Arts

Texts in English Textes originaux et traductions

Volume 25, Number 100, Fall 1980

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Publisher(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

ISSN 0042-5435 (print) 1923-3183 (digital)

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Cite this article (1980). Texts in English: Textes originaux et traductions. Vie des Arts, 25(100), 86–90.

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ TEXTS IX ENGLISH THE HUMAN LENS OF GABOR SZILASI

By Katherine TWEEDIE

Traces of man interest me very much, whether it's architecture or interiors or just a street or sign. There has to be a connection between nature and man in my photographs, (GABOR SZILASI)

Probably no other photographer has worked so intensively in Quebec, tracing interior and exterior environments of rural towns, portraying people in their milieu which reflects choice, social class and taste. From Abitibi, Ile aux Coudres and Beauce to Rue St. EDITORIAL Catherine, Montreal, the Texan Restaurant, Canada Cement and Bombay Boutique, we associate a human presence with the T.V.- By Andrée PARADIS inhabited interior and the flickering neon exterior. The recent exhi­ bition at the Musée d'Art Contemporain presented four diverse but Our hundredth issue proposes to reflect the spirit of celebration intrinsically related aspects of Szilasi's work. The introductory seg­ produced by the duration of an experience and its fidelity to original ment consisted of double images: a black and white portrait adjacent objectives. to a colour interior of the individual's living or work space. Subse­ In the first issue, which appeared in January-February 1956, the quently, we were confronted with large portraits of intimate friends body of editors, conscious of "the profound renaissance that is situated in somewhat anonymous backgrounds, a precise, formal affecting not only the world of forms and colours but also and par­ sequence of photographs of St. Catherine Street and finally, the ticularly the very spirit of the work of art", undertook to sustain, to iconographie architecture of Abitibi. foster the expansion of this climate that was in reality more revolu­ In the early seventies, interiors and portraits were two individual tionary than renascent. This they hoped to do by establishing through and separate facets of Szilasi's documentary work centered in rural the means of an art magazine a close contact between artists and Quebec. In the first part of the exhibition, these two facets are the public; that is, between the producers and the consumers of the joined, drawing a closer relationship between the individual and artistic object. This appropriately cultural rôle that Vie des Arts his environment. The juxtaposition is radical. Not only are the intended to play was directed toward all the elements of human subjects different, but one photograph is in black and white, the culture. Gérard Morisset, the first director of the publication, con­ other in colour, one has a relatively obvious grain structure, the ceived it in this way at the beginning: "Our magazine, therefore, will other fine resolution. essentially be an organ of information, as wide and as complete as Complementary and contradictory issues surface. Illusions of possible. All the artistic disciplines will have their part in it, those the photographic image fluctuate between imagined colour and given of the past as well as those of the present. Current trends will be colour, between psychological and physical presence in the portrait the object of a careful and impartial study; because Vie des Arts is and informative details relinquished by the interior. The two photo­ in no way directed against any group of artists but, rather, toward a graphs interact. For example, the portrait of Cheryl Fleming presents greater comprehension of art. At the time when the rift is being an innocent-looking woman against a bookcase shelving a collection widened between a certain art that is legitimate and a certain public of dolls. Reinforcing symbolism. In the adjacent interior, a pink and which asks only to understand but does not always have the power yellow graphic whooshes across the wall, a pink velvet divan lan­ to do so, it is not the moment for a more or less fruitless quarrel but, guishes in the centre of the room, plants flourish. The portrait con­ instead, for educational action. To make the work of art understood, tradicts the interior which illuminates the portrait. Innocence fades to make it felt" as the slit skirt moves farther up her leg. This was our line of conduct during the last quarter of the cen­ tury, when we tried above all to adapt ourselves to the conditions Double images of the technical system that defines our societies and that imposes On another level, this shift exists with respect to the physical on an art magazine the duty of being the mirror of modernity. There activity of the photographer. In most of the double images, there is remains the liberty of confronting this modernity and re-establishing a visual reference in the portrait to the interior: the corner of a chair, balances while attempting to escape the limits of an extremist intel- a telephone, a picture creeping in on the edge. These visual keys lectualization, responsible for varied orientations of the ways of reappear in the colour interior, their position relative to the frame creation. Among our functions is that of explaining the phenomenon changed, their tone amplified by colour. This shift in space and in more than supporting it, and we have above all sought to make of time reflects the activity of the photographer and the moments of Vie des Arts as open tool of expression ... a vehicle concerned with the portrait and the interior. the primacy of the image. A more direct relationship to time surfaces in the carefully or­ To this delight for the eye that we have tried to make unending, chestrated sequence of these images. From age to youth to age, we we invite our readers for the hundredth time. As much as possible are introduced to couples and individuals in rural and urban commu­ we have been vigilant to see that each article and each document nities. The first images present older couples who display close shall be exceptional, and it is for this reason that we have entrusted physical contact, individuals who surround themselves with tangible the production of the cover to artist Pierre Guimond. Perfectly in reminders of their past. In the portrait of Andor Pasztor, a bureau tune with the sensibility of his period, he has admirably perceived covered with photographic memorabilia provides a context. The the explosion of contemporary art; with collage and drawing he colour interior heightens detail: the photos hung with visible paper castigates the usual limits of the means of expression, clichés where picture hangers, two digital clocks, one of them midway between non-sense abounds and he seeks to re-create wholly, with a great 1:32 and 1:33, a radio. Next to him, Lola Lanyi in her housecoat deal of imagination and humour, the image of another reality. stands at the entrance to her living room which has a proliferation In conclusion, as prelude to the many events that will mark the of images of women: 5 or 6 paintings, a mask and the everpresent twenty-fifth anniversary of Vie des Arts in 1981, we are happy to television set with a 525 line female. All these details signify the announce the recent publication of the Index of the magazine for accumulation of goods over time, goods which are indicative of the the years 1966-1976. A long and exacting labour undertaken by our individual's personal history. The interior adds to the exterior phy­ colleague, Jules Bazin, this instrument of work will certainly be of sical presence of the individual. use to the researchers who have impatiently been waiting for it. This Index casts light on the inventory of artistic activity that the maga­ Life-size zine has produced in a decade. Subsequent images trace two teenagers and their parapher­ One may wonder, "What next after the hundredth?" The same nalia: zappy wallpaper, magazine cut-outs of Dallas Cowboy cheer­ care, a ceaseless effort toward a better understanding of the crea­ leaders and Farrah Fawcett-Majors. Young couples relax in their tive experience and the most thorough vigilance in order not to makeshift environments. Individual men, most of them artists, in­ allow to pass unnoticed the artist of to-day or of to-morrow for whom cluding the photographer himself, are scrutinized in their work meaning is again linked to an idea of value. place. Finally we are gently led back to an older couple and an edlerly woman from Lotbinière, flanked by a photograph on her wall (Translation by Mildred Grand) which reminds us of Andor Pasztor, his photo memorabilia and the

86 beginning of the series. This is an attachment to everyday life, the bition and elsewhere. This does not mean that the exhibition suffers couples and the singles, youth and age, unknown people with no severely, but simply that there are relatively weaker points, given public myths except what the photographs bring to the viewer. the strength and magnitude of many photographs. The next sequence of large black and white portraits is more straightforward. But if the first set of images are contemplative, in­ formative and encourage energetic involvement, the second group of portraits are more agressive, confronting the viewer with life-size faces, mirror images minutely detailed. In the short introduction to the exhibition, Szilasi mentions that these people are intimate TWO VERSIONS OF MOSES BY HENDRICK DE CLERCK friends, that the images are not definitive portraits of the individual. True. Rarely, if ever, is a portrait definitive, for it records one moment By Myra Nan ROSENFELD in time, a moment shared by the photographer and the person photo­ graphed, a moment when the subject is aware of the camera and The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has recently been given an presents a persona to be viewed by others, a moment between two important seventeenth century Flemish painting, Moses Striking the other moments which will never be repeated identically. Rock at Mara, by Hendrick de Clerck.' This painting rejoins another Like the double portraits, the organization of the sequence is version of the same subject by De Clerck which was acquired by the important and sometimes contains gentle twists of irony. Two nymph­ Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ten years earlier, in 1969.! It is extra­ like girls are sandwiched between an older, heavily painted woman ordinary for a museum in Canada to own two versions of the same with pursed lips and a partially shaven, barechested miner from painting by this rare Flemish artist whose works are now preserved Noranda. The contrasts are powerful and unrelenting, reflecting a mainly in churches and museums in Belgium. There are only twelve diversity of human expression. Another type of subtle irony appears securely documented works known by Hendrick de Clerck. These in the portrait of Gilbert Marion and his son. Their resemblance is two paintings are extremely interesting, since they were probably uncanny. Both adhere to the conventional look of the sixties, long executed at different periods in De Clerck's life and thereby give us hair and jeans. But there is one minor rôle reversal; the son sports insight into the development of his style. a shirt and tie, the father a tee-shirt. Hendrick de Clerck's œuvre is important, since it illustrates the And finally in this tightly knit group, the portrait of Andor tradition of Flemish late Renaissance mannerism that was to con­ Pasztor, unlike the one in the first segment, but reawakening our tribute to the development of the art of Peter Paul Rubens (1577- memory of the previous image and illustrating the diversity of por­ 1640). Little is known of De Clerck's life. The places and dates of traits at different moments in time. Eyes closed, mouth half open in both his birth and death are unknown. He seems to have been active song or speech, once again he stands in front of photo memories primarily in Brussels. His earliest known painting, a signed and dated although their rôle is indistinct and indefinite. The most momentary triptych with the Holy Family of St. Ann on the central panel, was of portraits signals the end of the sequence. executed in 1590 for the Kapellekerk in Brussels.3 Modern historians believed for a long time that Hendrick de Clerk was a student of Order and disorder Maarten de Vos (1532-1603). However, there is no reason to assume The next two series, the facades of St. Catherine Street and this, since Karel van Mander, who probably knew De Clerck, did the architecture of Abitibi, describe man-made but selectively un­ not list him as a student of Maarten de Vos in his Het Schilderboeck populated environments. St. Catherine Street is the more formally which was published in Amsterdam in 1618.4 De Vos' mature style complex, relying on grid systems, flat planes, clarity of detail and is quite different from De Clerck's early style, as we can see by light quality. The series starts in the west with the Restaurant Texan comparing the Holy Family of St. Ann by De Vos which is signed and moves through to the eastern part of the city, ending with the and dated 1593,5 to the above-mentioned 1590 Holy Family ot St. Ann full figure image of Théâtre Denise-Pelletier. Although the sequence by De Clerck. Whereas De Clerck used very sharply defined, crisp is linear, the viewer doesn't walk a straight line. As camera distance triangular drapery folds, De Vos used much more fluid, curvilinear from the subject changes, an undulating rhythm is established, folds. Laureyssens has suggested that the two artists collaborated sometimes moving in on a fragment or pulling back to encompass in the late 1590's, since one can find mutual influences in their work. the entire building. The details call attention to the order (or disorder, In fact, in a Holy Family ol St. Ann which De Clerck signed and dated as the case may be) of the architectural structure, and to the neon in 1611,6 he has adopted the more fluid drapery folds of De Vos. lights, signs or representational drawings signifying commercial In 1606, Hendrick de Clerck was appointed court painter to Archduke content. Framing determines this attention, for through careful selec­ Albert and Archduchess Isabella in Brussels, just three years before tion of detail, the underlying order of the structure is revealed. For Rubens. It was while he was in the service of the court that De example, in the Supersexe/Palace Theatre image, the fragments of Clerck collaborated with Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625) and Denys van the two structures divide the frame, thereby setting up a comparison. Alsloot (1570-1628) on a series of landscapes with classical figures.7 The tin-ribbed, exterior surface of Supersexe shares the frame De Clerck's last known painting, a Descent from the Cross, was equally with the neo-classical columns of the Palace Theatre; sexy executed in 1628 for the Church of Sts. Peter and Guidon in neon ladies compete with Clint Eastwood's "Escape from Alcatraz." Anderlect.8 Absurdities abound. The painting of Moses Striking the Rock at Mara recently do­ As one moves east, structures are photographed in their entire­ nated to the Montreal Museum can be authenticated by a preparatory ty, indicating a distance, an end to the series and establishing a link drawing which Hendrick de Clerck signed with his monogram "HDC" with the next group of images, all of which are frontal, full figure in the Cabinet des dessins of the Louvre.9 The compositions of the 'portraits' of indigenous Abitibi architecture. In an historical context, drawing and painting are almost identical. However, in the final these two architectural series recall the work of Walker Evans, painting the figure of Moses has been moved from the middle ground steady in their execution, studied in organization and specific in to the background. Thus the focal point of the composition in the time and place. In another sense, they parallel the first group of painting is not Moses, but a seated woman with two children who double images. Surface qualities are stressed in the black and white looks out at the spectator just left of the centre in the middle ground. St. Catherine Street photos; choice and combination of colours in During the years between 1580 and 1620, Flemish painters were the Abitibi images reveal cultural taste. The phenomenon of painted very much influenced by Italian art and continued a tradition that houses to counteract the long grey winter months and the vast ex­ goes back to the fifteenth century. Earlier artists such as Hieronymus panse of snow-covered ground is reflected in the attention to colour. Bosch (active 1474-1516), Jan Gossaert (active 1505-1532) and Pieter Each photo in the series is taken from the same position and dis­ Brueghel the Elder (active 1551-1569) went to Italy. The influence of tance, minimizing spatial and temporal shifts and accentuating Michelangelo, Titian and Tintoretto is found in the paintings of changes in architectural form and colour. They present a sensibility Maarten de Vos. Jan Brueghel I, another of De Clerck's collabora­ particular to rural Québec. tors, worked for Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, The effort here has been to analyze Szilasi's exhibition, to pay for several years, between 1592 and 1596."1 Hendrick de Clerk, like close attention to the structure and to extract a possible under­ the above artists, was also influenced by Italian art. It has been noted standing of his photographic work. However, this article also reflects by several art historians that the woman who is the focal point of the a critical stance. Extensive space has been given to the double composition in the middle ground of the recently donated Moses images because, in my opinion, they are the strongest, most com­ Striking the Rock at Mara shows the influence of the marble plex and captivating photographs in the exhibition. St. Catherine Madonna which Michelangelo executed for the church of Notre Street stands on its own as an entity separate from the first and at Dame in Bruges in 1501." Other figures in the painting refer to works times exhibits exquisite formal control and beauty. The large por­ that De Clerck may have seen in Rome. The reclining woman in the traits and Abitibi photos, however, seem subordinate, amplifying left corner of the composition is a reversed version of the figure of ideas which have already been initiated and explored in the exhi­ Sappho in Raphael's Parnassus in the Stanza della Segnatura in

87 the Vatican (1508-1511). The woman carrying a pitcher on her head in the upper right section of the painting recalls a similar figure from JOSEPH BEUYS: MIRROR OF THE TECHNICAL AGE Raphael's Fire in the Borgo in the Stanza dell'lncendio in the Vatican (1515-1517). Hendrick de Clerck probably also saw the Sistine By Helen DUFFY Chapel in the Vatican. A standing man in the center of the fore­ ground recalls many of the Ignudi in Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling 2 The Dusseldorf artist Joseph Beuys is beginning to emerge as (1508-1512).' one of the most interesting and controversial personalities of Ger­ We should now consider the relationship between the two ver­ many. In Canada, where his work has yet to be exhibited in a sions of Moses Striking The Rock at Mara in the Montreal Museum museum setting ("A Space" in Toronto showed some of it a few of Fine Arts. The oblong painting recently donated to the Museum is years ago), his reputation rests on printed information, videotapes unsigned, whereas the octagonal painting acquired in 1969 has and the frequent discussion his ideas stimulate among artists who Hendrick de Clerck's monogram "HDC" in the lower right corner. know about him or have met him in Europe. His name comes up in The composition of the two paintings is different. Moses is the focal lectures on avant-garde art, advanced art, action art, performance point of the composition in the octagonal painting. He is placed art and sometimes in connection with sculpture and multiples. He securely in the middle ground just to the left of the central axis. De represented Germany at the Biennale in Venice in 1976 and at the Clerck has placed the figures along diagonals which cross in the XV Biennale in Sâo Paulo 1979. Also in 1979 he had an exhibition of centre just next to Moses. This central axis is further emphasized his drawings at the Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Switzerland, and a retro­ by the two small children drinking water out of a shell in the fore­ spective at The Guggenheim in New York. ground. In the oblong panel, Moses is located in the background, off Beuys has reached an enviable height in his career. His sculp­ centre. As noted above, the focal point of the composition is the ture, drawings, prints, chosen objects and multiples, room installa­ seated woman with two children to the left of the central axis. The tions, action pieces and video performances attract international at­ composition of the oblong panel is based on an asymmetrical zig­ tention. Museums compete to show his work, to arrange retrospective zag which extends from the lower right corner to the woman with shows and, often over the frustrated protest of patrons and taxpayers, the children at the left and up to the woman carrying a jug on her purchase individual pieces for their permanent collections.The ques­ head in the upper right section of the painting. We can see how De tion of acquisition can lead to grave consequences for a museum Clerck had a standard repertory of figures which he repeated often. director who has to choose between Beuys and the rich patron's firm The woman looking out at the viewer and the two children drinking opposition. One of the world's most outstanding private collections out of a shell occur in both versions of Moses Striking the Rock at was auctioned off not long ago in London after the Kunstmuseum Mara, as well as in the 1590 Holy Family of St. Ann. Basel lost its wealthiest supporters over such an issue. It can also The two versions of Moses Striking the Rock at Mara are different lead to problems of a different kind.Two years ago, one of his chosen in style and thus are most likely different in date. The earlier of the object pieces, "Bathtub" 1960 (private collection), was inadvertently two paintings seems to be the octagonal version. Its triangular shaped used to cool beer during a political party gathering in the Leverkusen folds and shimmering, crisp highlights reveal it to be closest in style Museum where it was stored. No visible harm occurred but the to the 1590 triptych Holy Family of St. Ann. The deeper colours and owner sued and the court awarded $US 94,000 damages. more fluid drapery folds place the oblong version closer in style to Beuys is much in demand as a lecturer. After it was announced the later 1611 version of the Holy Family of St. Ann. The oblong that he would attend the opening of his retrospective exhibition at version was probably executed by Hendrick de Clerck in conjunction The Guggenheim in New York, no fewer than thirty American univer­ with a member or members of his studio, in contrast to the octagonal sities sent invitations. He had to decline. He has become a myth, a version which is a completely autograph work. This hypothesis would distinction usually awarded to artists posthumously when the value explain why the octagonal version was signed, and the oblong ver­ of their contribution falls in line with the retrospective analysis of sion was not. In 1590, at the beginning of his career, Hendrick de an epoch. Beuys the myth is easier to quote than Beuys the man Clerck probably did not have a workshop. In 1610, when he was who likes to call himself an "activator" rather than an artist. His working for the court in Brussels, he probably was receiving more world is like a labyrinth: One enters or one doesn't, but it's there in commissions and needed a large shop. The oblong version also all its complexities and it cannot be ignored. reveals how the influence of Maarten de Vos appeared later in De Beuys is important now because he sincerely tries to show Clerck's career, and thus supports Laureyssens' view that the two others what he has come to know about himself. He transmits this were collaborators rather than master and pupil. knowledge through his work and his actions; through language which Thus, the two versions of Moses Striking the Rock at Mara in is for him indispensable as integral part of sculptural formations and, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts by Hendrick de Clerk give us an visible or not, becomes admissible within a plastic vocabulary. His opportunity to evaluate the development of the career of this rare capacity to express himself clearly, logically and willingly makes his but important artist. philosophy accessible to people who may never have the opportunity to view his sculpture. It also may be acceptable to those who have 1. I would like to thank Willy Laureyssens, Curator of Painting, Musées Royaux seen and rejected it. des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, and Roselyne Bacou, Curator, Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, for their help in my research on these two paintings. This On all levels, Beuys communicates the belief in the creative painting was acquired by a private collector in Canada from H. N. Bier, London. thought of man as a spiritual being capable of extending his vision It was previously in the possession of Colnaghi, London. beyond the socio-political boundaries of his environment. His own 2. Purchased from H. Schickman, N.Y., 19S9; New York, Parke Bernet sale, No. 2819, March 12, 1969, No. 15; Apollo, March, Vol. LXXXIX, No. 85, March, 1969, exploration of the relation between reality and symbol, truth and p. CXXXV (advertisement, ill.); Montreal Museum ol Fine Arts, Annual' Report hypocrisy, memory and thought process coincides with similar con­ in M3. December, 1969, ill. cover; D. G. Carter, Northern Baroque and the cerns outside Germany. Italian Connexion, Apollo, Vol. CIII. No. 171, May, 1976, ill. p. 48, fig. 1, p. 50. Much of what he advocates has been expressed at different It is difficult to determine which of these paintings is mentioned in a 1670 sale in Antwerp. See: Charles Terlinden, Henri de Clerck, le peintre de Notre-Dame- moments in history by creative people similarly motivated, but in de-la-Chapelle, in Revue belge d'archéologie et de l'histoire de l'art, XXI, 1952, ways that met with considerably more resistance. It also corresponds p. 88, and J. Deuncé, KunstWtvoer in de 17e eevw te Antwerpen, Antwerp, 1930, to courageous efforts made by his predecessors, the artists and p. 87. 3. Willy Laureyssens, Hendrick De Clercks triptiek uit de Kappelekerk te Brusset, in writers whose works were destroyed because they spoke of the same Bulletin des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Vol. XV, 1966, No. 3, rights for individual freedom in the creative process. Beuys as a pp. 165-168; fig. 2, p. 167. child had watched the public burning of books. Beuys attempts 4. Laureyssens, 1966, No. 3, p. 165 and Karel Van Mander, Het Schilderboeck, through his art and his public actions to provide insights into moral Amsterdam, 1618. Only a later source, A. A. Houbraken, De Groote schonburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en schilderessen, 'S Gravenhage, Vol. I, problems arising in politics, Christianity, education, ecology and 1718, p. 221, cites De Clerck's as a student of Maarten de Vos. other related fields. He has risen to prominence by saying the 5. Laureyssens, 1966, No. 3, pp. 169-170; fig. 3, p. 168. wrong thing at the right time and he has done it so consistently over 6. Laureyssens, 1966, No. 3, p. 171; fig. 5. the past twenty-five years that even his most steadfast adversaries 7. Laureyssens, De samenwerking van Hendrick de Clerck met Denijs van Alsloot in Bulletin des Musées Royaux de Belgique, Vol. XVI, 1967, No. 1-3, pp. J63-177. give him credit for sheer endurance. 8. Laureyssens, Hendrick de Clercks Kruisalneming uit de Sint-Pieters-Guidokerk Although his philosophy and the anthropological symbolism he te Anderlecht in Bulletin des Musées Royaux de Belgique, Vol. XV, 1966, No. 4, uses in much of his work are rooted in western European history or pp. 257-264; fig. 1, p. 258. 9. F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre. Inventaire général des dessins des Écoles du Nord, Eurasian mythology, the essence of his message can be read and École flamande, I, No. 530 (19.877), p. 44, pi. XLIV. interpreted as a universal though highly personal ideology. In his 10. Jan Brueghel the Elder, London, Brod Gallery, 21 June - 20 July 1979, Introduc­ own country opinion is sharply divided between those who under­ tion and catalogue by Klaus Ertz, p. 9. stand and support it and others who feel threatened by it.The fiercest 11. C. de Tolnay, Michel-Ange, Paris, 1970, pp. 34-36; ill. p. 35. I would like to thank Dr. Micheline Moisan and Robert Little for this suggestion. opposition Beuys encounters comes from artists active in other 12. S.-J. Freedberg, High Renaissance Painting, Cambridge, 1901, Vol. I, pp. 121- fields, and from tradition-conscious historians and academics. The 122, 293-307; Vol. II, PI. 161, PI. 379, and De Tolnay, 1970, pp. 46-78; ill. p. 64. majority of the general public only feels bewildered. The stale 88 Picasso jokes are replaced now by the Beuys jokes. published by the Kunstmuseum Basel: "When someone sees my Any work by Beuys when reproduced out of context looks things, I appear". bizarre, even irrational; any journalistic word-by-word account of Beuys' use of himself as a performer is a force in itself. As a his performance pieces reads like the scenario for a play whose narrator of myth and reality he adopts a primitive form of ritual dramatic problems haven't been worked out. in which the unconscious mental activity guides the unfolding of a The direct physical confrontation between viewer and object cre­ visual imagery. Like the spokesman of a tribe or the Celtic story­ ates a unique rapport. Fat, felt, fur and leather or malleable stuff like teller of a preliterate society he holds his audience spellbound. He industrial blanketing and felt produce predictable reactions and Beuys' reveals himself in the process of a slow pace action, using chosen initial intention was to use it in order to provoke the shock effect as a symbols as a code. His basic symbols — such as the hare, the elk, base for discussion about the potential of sculpture and culture:what the staff and the cross — become metaphors for thought and impli­ does it mean, what is it all about and how does it relate to language? cation. They relate to certain experiences in his life which were to What are production and creativity? In fact, the artist challenges the become significant in a much wider context and they form a con­ public to ask the archetypal question which every child throughout sistent leitmotif in the artist's work. Beuys developed this form of the history of manking has asked: "What are you doing, mister?" ancient behaviour intentionally. He believes that in a world where Fat in itself is a banal and perishable substance, not associated everyone tends to behave and speak rationally, it becomes neces­ with art (except for the culinary arts and the butter sculptures built sary for a kind of shaman or enchanter to bring about change and by cordon-bleu chefs) and in Beuys' hands it becomes the "Social development. His performances affirm the fact that the aura sur­ Sculpture". He uses it to give shape to intended forms; he uses it rounding the personality of an artist is an inseparable element of for symbolic purposes; and he uses it to initiate a confrontation. his presence. The degree of his sincerity and spirituality has to hold Fat as a primary energy source is an ingredient very basic to sur­ the balance, which could tip abruptly to the very opposite of the vival. The early Beuys pieces in the '50s related to the deprivation scale to mere showmanship and mock ritual. of supplies in wartime when fat became scarce and therefore In the area of the chosen symbol and the implied symbolism of precious, when butter or lard was more important than money. Felt its representation in Beuys' work verbal information becomes im­ goes back to the nomadic tribes who fabricated it thousands of portant. The artist's personal interpretation of his symbols differs years ago, and it has remained in use ever since as an effective from a wide range of other possible interpretations and associations insulating and heat-preserving material. the viewer may be familiar with. The frames of reference are uniquely Beuys uses these materials in their raw state, unadorned or the artist's own and correspond to the sum total of his own past which artificially coloured. The dull grey and brown is meant to evoke a left an indelible mark not only on Beuys the artist, but on a whole colourful world within the viewer through an anti-image. This concept generation of his contemporaries. If he is referred to as a shaman, is based on the phenomenon of complementary colours: look at a a high priest, a messiah, a guru, a revolutionary, a counter-revolu­ red light, close your eyes — watch how it changes to green. Beuys tionary, a Eurasian médecine man, one still has to accept him above strongly rejects any suggestion that he ignores the colour factor. all as a political moralist. In order to understand his uniqueness it is Through an anti-image he offers an entry into a transcendental and necessary to know some biographical details about his life and the spiritual world which is implied but not given as a visual sensation. circumstances which brought him to his present place in the world. In the mid '60s prominent theologians in Europe began to take Joseph Beuys was born on May 12th, 1921 in Krefeld near the nature of Beuy's ritualistic approach to creation very seriously Dusseldorf. He grew up in Kleve (or Cleves) close to the Dutch and saw in his transubstantiation process the symbolic revelation border. The land is flat and has been a historic batteground for of the Eucharist. (The artist's own religious feelings are outlined in many centuries. From the Romans to Napoleon and to the Second the text and interview of the 1979 catalogue "Traces in Italy" World War; from Henry VIII who married Anne of Cleves for political published by the Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Switzerland. Not yet trans­ reasons to Richard Wagner who based his opera "Lohengrin" on lated from its orginal German.) the massive castle "Schwanenburg" in Cleves, the region is per­ It is regrettable that Beuys' warmth and genuine feeling for life meated with legend, myth and local superstition. are overlooked in the effort of understanding his work intellectually. Bueys grew up among hardworking people who had little time The quality of his wit tends to get lost in the translating and editing for art and higher politics. His family ran a flour and fodder business. of his interviews into other languages. His sense of humor and They were strict Catholics and Joseph was their only child. Left very occasional self-parody runs like an undercurrent through anything much on his own he developed early a great interest in botany and he does. His use of fat, for instance, also implies a pun in the in literature, particularly Nordic history and mythology which were direction of the way in which 'fat' is used in language, a joke which to lead him later to the Scandinavian writers and philosophers. Like isn't shared by the fastidiously clean visitor who happens to wander any child growing up during the depression years he felt his parents' through a museum and discovers the corners in a gallery thickly worries but could not share them. He began to think of himself as padded with lard. an outsider at home and at school. Like everyone else he joined the Beuys' philosophy goes beyond what he calls the "little pseudo- Hitler Youth and dreamt about a future dedicated to studies in cultural ghetto" of the art world. Though he stresses his lack of médecine or the natural sciences. In his autobiographical references, interest in the manipulation of the art market, there is also no childhood and adolescent recollections become a key to under­ recorded objection from him that at least one big American con­ standing his later work and the iconography of his symbols. glomerate corporation collects his major sculptural works. In 1940 the nineteen-year old Beuys joined the Luftwaffe and His dealer René Block was able, after much persuading, to win was trained first as a radio operator, then as a dive bomber pilot. him over to the idea of the "multiple" which began to find popular He was stationed in southern Russia, the Ukraine and the Crimea appeal fourteen years ago. Beuys made his first "usable" multiples and it was in that region that his plane crashed, hit by Russian in 1968, which were to include the "Evervess Club Soda" bottles anti-aircraft fire. He was saved by a tribe of Tartar herdsmen who with water you might like to drink; the "Sled" which can be used in discovered him among the wreckage of his JU 87 and applied the wintertime; and the "Intuition" box with pencil line and handwritten first aid care still practised in primitive northern settlements — the addition, of which more than 10,000 have been sold since. The sled covering of the patient's body thickly with animal fat before wrapping was also used as a component in the humorous installation piece it in blankets to keep warm near the fire. Beuys slowly regained "The Pack" 1969, in which twenty of them are shown pouring out of consciousness after many days. Within the hut the pungent odors of the rear end of a Volkswagen bus, each one with its survival kit of damp felt, tallow and fat merged in his mind with the miracle of his rolled up blanket, flashlight and a lump of fat. return to life, with the ancient rites to which he owed his survival Now the catalogue raisonné of his collectibles is published in and with the dream images his subconscious mind had retained in book form. Unlike Andy Warhol in the United States, Beuys isn't early childhood. During the war, Luftwaffe pilots were sent to concerned with creating stunning and colorful mass-market art. His southern Italy from time to time to test aircraft weapons. In the multiple doesn't aim at decorating an executive suite or adorning a Gargano mountains, close to the Adriatic sea, Beuys was to discover coffee table in a luxury setting. It is anathema to the "beautiful" and a world infinitely more fascinating than the target shooting exercises "aesthetically appealing" object. A rough totalling of his 1975 output he was ordered to conduct. He set out on his own to explore. High comes to more than 2158 signatures by the artist on a variety of up in the hills the quiet life of the farmers had changed little over the surfaces, from paper, metal and polythene to cobblestone (basalt), centuries and he found fragments of a distant past embedded in clay glass and LP records. These multiples are essentially fetish objects and rock. It was here that he became involved in questions of a more or reliquaries embued with the symbolic significance of some in­ philosophical kind about his future purpose in life. He began to feel trinsic bond between owner and originator. Antenna, memory prop, deeply about the Mediterranean history and the arts which were anchor — Beuys likes to refer to it also as a cross-connection linked to it. (Out of such thoughts grew a vast number of delicate between people who relate to his cause and to the meaning of his drawings and works on paper which were shown in the spring '79 at oeuvre. In the artist's own words, quoted in the 1970 catalogue, the Kunstmuseum of Lucerne, under the title "Traces in Italy".)

89 The wartime experience as a collective trauma of mass mani­ urban problems, sociological processes and the threat of an up­ pulation of people and human rights left him with a lasting mistrust surging materialism became urgent. Germany became suddenly the of authority, bureaucratic power and political manoeuvering. He place where such experiments could be conducted and the Ameri­ returned to Kleve from a British prisoner-of-war camp at Cuxhaven cans were quick to realize its potential. Artists like Rauschenberg, in 1946. Eucouraged by his family and friends in the arts, he began Oldenburg, Kline, Morris, Brecht among others came. Influential to study sculpture as well as scientific subjects. The first manifesta­ groups like "Zero" and "Fluxus" spread a network of internation tion of his success as a maker of religious images were roughly contacts among artists working in the fields of conceptional and carved gravestones from '49 until '51. performance art. The Happening grew simultaneously with Neo- A new future was gradually opening up for him and with it the Dada, minimal art and, in Italy, "arte povera". Art outside the aims growing awareness of a freedom in the arts, freedom as a primary of the "finished" object became an instrument for expressing the condition for the expression of thoughts and concepts which could stark need in the electric age to come to grips with the implied not be communicated in any other way. He entered the Dusseldorf prophecies for the future. The consistency in Beuys' conduct Academy as a student. In 1961 he was appointed professor of throughout these periods becomes increasingly important because, sculpture at the same institution. In 1972 he was dismissed from in his career, it is now possible to trace the step-by-step develop­ this position. The main reason was Beuys' disregard for the ment of such art. It is the artitst's personal pursuits which makes "numerus clausus" (restricted entry), a clause of German educa­ them unique and relevant to our time. tional law. His class totalled over 400 students, 142 of whom had Any artist who outgrows the local esoteric circles of devotees been rejected by other faculty members. Beuys started legal pro­ and reaches an international audience of people ready to look, listen, ceedings against the Ministry which lasted for years and became debate, accept or reject, carries an enormous weight of responsi­ a cause célèbre in Germany. His position was clear and firm: if there bility. He has to defend standards and at times refrain from speaking are those who wish to learn and those who wish to teach, then the his mind in deference to the sensibilities of others. Supporters and State acts repressively if it prevents them coming together. (Ger­ opponents are quick to detect any flaws or deviations in his conduct. many's art schools are notoriously overcrowded; an aspiring student The significance of Beuys' actions affects directly and indirectly has to apply to several academies before he might, with luck, gain the future conduct of artists outside Germany. It isn't a question of entry.) The work of Beuys in the '70s is heavily influenced by this success or failure, of a break-through or a fizzing out of the lime­ battle with bureaucracy. He was supported by his students who held light. The question is far more serious: Where are the boundaries demonstrations, initiated strike actions, and brought their work to today, in our western world, for the idealistically motivated super the entrance of the Dusseldorf Academy where Beuys held seminars star of the arts? in the street. (In 1978 he finally won his case in the supreme court. Beuys the artist could easily profit from his established reputa­ Though his teaching contract ceased to exist, he regained the use tion and go on indefinitely producing works which are eagerly of his studio at the Academy and he is authorized to continue to bought up by collectors and museums, feeding the profits into his hold the title of Professor.) project for the Free International University. No matter what he does In the spring of '73 the first steps towards the founding of a in the future, it cannot diminish the credibility of his past achieve­ Union for the advancement of a "Free International College for ments. The artist, activist and political moralist Beuys might even­ Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research" were taken and Beuys tually reach the stage the late philosopher Bertrand Russell arrived proposed himself as its "founding rector". The first outline for FIU at when he said at the age of eighty-nine: "I must, before I die, find (Free International University) was given in a manifesto drawn up some means of saying the essential thing which is in me, which I by Beuys and the Nobel Prizewinning writer Heinrich Boell as a have not yet said, a thing which is neither love nor hate nor pity co-founder in '72. For Canadians who are not familiar with the post­ nor scorn but the very breath of life, shining and coming from afar, war development of Germany the following extract from his mani­ which will link into human life the immensity, the frightening, festo might help to make the setting clear:... "The founders of the wondrous and implacable forces of the non-human." school proceed from the knowledge that since 1945, along with the brutality of the reconstruction period, the gross privileges afforded by monetary reforms, and crude accumulation of possessions and an upbringing resulting in an expense-account mentality, many in­ sights and initiatives have been prematurely shattered. The realistic attitude of those who do survive, the idea that living might be the purpose of existence, has been denounced as a romantic fallacy. The Nazi's "Blood and Soil" doctrine, which ravaged land and spilled blood, has disturbed our relation to tradition and environ­ Klonaridis Inc. ment. Now, however, it is no longer regarded as romantic but exceedingly realistic to fight for every tree, every plot of undeveloped 144 Front Street West land, every stream as yet unpoisoned, every old town centre, and against every thoughless reconstruction scheme. And it is no longer considered romantic to speak of nature. In the permanent trade Toronto, Ontario M5J 1G2 competition and performance rivalry of the two German political systems which have successfully exerted themselves for recogni­ tion, the values for life have been lost." ... This is the voice of a generation who went through the traumatic experience of a nation that turned from political fanatism to aggressive denial of guilt, and went on to replace the lost spiritual values with out-and-out mate­ rialistic greed. Dusseldorf today, with its Kunsthalle, its slick galleries, its David Bolduc Lynn Donoghue modern Art Academy and the wealthy art patrons represents one of the monuments to the "economy miracle" in this sector of the Paul Fournier Erik Gamble Rheinland, the Ruhr mining valley. It is difficult at present to recall Robert Goodnough Adolph Gottlieb that in this capital of the richest territory in the Federal Republic in the immediate post-war period, you could pay for admission to a K.M. Graham Andrew Hudson theater with a lump of coal. The phenomena of Dusseldorf would never have happened without the dynamic contribution of its artists. Robert Murray Stephanie Kirschen Cole Without them it would in all probability have become just like any other prosperous industrial city in Europe. Milly Ristvedt Handerek Gerardo Ramirez If Diisseldorf's artists in the 19th century exerted a great in­ fluence on American landscape painting in the Hudson River region, Tony Scherman Paul Sloggett their activities in our time again connected with the American art Daniel Solomon world soon after the end of World War II, but this time they did not emigrate to do so. Instead of falling into the academic stagnation which trapped the British art scene during that period, they turned to techniques by which new artistic concepts could be realized. Structural problems replaced concerns for compositions. The man- nature-technology relationship had to be updated. The question of 90